5 Fun Ways to Teach Comparatives and Superlatives

Teaching comparatives and superlatives to young learners usually takes a lot of time and resources, but it is one of the most important topics studied in primary school and it can be done in an interesting way.

Comparatives are used to compare two things, superlatives — three or more things. How to make learning this topic more interesting for students? Here are 5 exciting games.

Comparative Adjective: Faster

Write 10 — 15 words learned in the lesson on the board. Choose two students and ask them to come to the board. Give each a rubber band for the board (or a marker if you are writing with a marker). Students should turn their backs to the board. 

The student who did it faster becomes the winner. The rest of the class should say in a full sentence which of the two students completed the task faster, for example: “Anya is faster than Olya” and so on.

Superlative Adjective: Fastest

The game described above can also be used to study superlatives. The procedures are the same, but this time you can invite three students to the board. The winner is the one who completed the task first.

The rest of the class can say in a full sentence who was the fastest, for example: “Denis was the fastest” and so on.

The same game can be used to practice the use of other adjectives, such as:

Another interesting way to study comparatives and superlatives is a quiz. You can write questions yourself and create such a quiz, but if you do not have time for this, we offer ready-made video quizzes:

To do the quiz, just show the students these videos, stopping them to give some time to answer. Quiz tasks can be done as a whole class or in pairs or groups.

All you need for the game is a timer. Write a few comparatives on the board. Choose a category with many nouns, such as ‘Animals’. Write a comparative sentence on the board as in an example: “Elephants are bigger than cats.” Now it’s the students’ turn.

The aim of the game is to create as many comparative chains as possible. To create a chain, students must make a comparative sentence, starting with the last noun of the previous sentence.

Give the teams some time to create as many chains as possible, and then change the subject. This way you can play by practicing comparatives.

Flashcards are a great way to learn or repeat vocabulary. But they will also be useful for studying comparatives and superlatives. For this game, first prepare a set of flashcards on any topic, such as ‘Animals’, ‘Food’, ‘School items’, etc.

Divide the class into two teams and invite one representative from each team to the board. The task is quite simple. You show the students a card with a picture of the object, the students who come to the board have to make and write a sentence with this word on the board, using the degrees of comparison of adjectives.

The first student to write the correct sentence wins a point for his team. At the end of the game, the team with the most points becomes the winner.

If you work online or have the opportunity to play this game in the classroom — we are sure your students will be delighted. All you have to do is follow the link and click on the “Start” button.

The task will appear on the screen. Students have to choose the correct option. If the answer is correct, they get a reward — the opportunity to demonstrate their skills in darts — to shoot an arrow into a moving ball, collecting more points. This game can be played with the whole class or in teams or pairs.

Finally, we offer a selection of materials that you may need when teaching this topic to children.

Games and curiosities always attract young learners and even teenagers. We hope you find the selection of our games useful.